Marked
by Stars Walk Backward
Summary: It was said that Soul Marks were something that had always existed in human beings, dark pigmentations of the skin that existed from birth, shifting by the age of puberty to spell out clear words: the name of one's soulmate… or one's last words. By the time he was 17, for Philip Lombard, both were to be true. Soulmate-Identifying Marks AU in canon with the BBC's adaptation
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: Massive thank you to my beta loves, williamsholdens & evennstars 3 Your read-throughs have meant no end of help to me, because I get so lost in my own writing that it's hard to see what a reader sees sometimes, so THANK YOU! [I'm sorry I write so much... I know it's a lot of work]._

 _Also, a massive thank you in general to xxsparksxx, who will forever be my greatest Philip/Vera writing idol._

 _This project has become such a labour of love for me. I've been working on it for about a month now, since I had a conversation with my wonderful housemate in the pub about how interesting ATTWN would be in Soul Mark AU, since it's all about morality/life and death._

 _It has grown into quite a monster... and this is just the tip of the iceberg (a 20k+ word iceberg)... So, make sure to REVIEW if you want more!_

 _(Originally posted to my AO3 goodgirlwhoshopeful)_

 _xxx_

* * *

1939

* * *

 ** _P. Lombard [Philip]  
_** ** _DOB: September 12th, 1909_**

 _Place of Birth: Lucan, Dublin, Ireland  
_ _Status: Unmarked_

* * *

Philip had never known why he had not been born with a _Soul Mark_ the way everyone else had... but he had a theory.

It was said to be something that had always existed in human beings, though no one seemed to know how or why; dark pigmentations of the skin that existed from birth, shifting by the age of puberty to spell out clear words.

Usually, these read one of two things, depending on the course one's soul would take: the name of one's soulmate... or one's last words.

The fact Philip had never had a Mark that he could distinguish of either type was incredibly rare within itself, but, in his mind, suggested one of two things: either he was never to love... or he was to take a life, as was the wives tale about _Unmarked_ individuals.

By the time he was seventeen, it became clear that for Philip Lombard, _both_ were to be true.

As a boy, life on the streets of Dublin had been rough. As a city, it was a mass of contradictions – a second city of the British Empire but a first city of nationalist Ireland, with divisions of class and culture being incredibly stark. When Philip thought back on it, he realised what a city of _diversity_ it had been. Rich and poor, immigrant and native, nationalist and unionist, Catholic, Protestant, Jew and Quaker, _Marked_ and _Unmarked_ alike – all bound together in the life of the city. He also realised, by now, what an utter _shit-hole_ it had been.

Philip's past was something he did not address often; he considered it irreverent and an unnecessary blot on the canvas of his life that could only improve. Not long after Philip was born in 1909, his mother, a sweet but _spineless_ woman, had moved her family into central Dublin from the southern suburb of Lucan to find what little work she could to provide for her and her four children. The reality of what greeted their family, however, was not the life his mother had hoped for. Tens of thousands lived in tenement slums, starved into ill-health, begging on the fringes of society. With a high death-rate, thousands of families, including his own, living in one-roomed accommodations, the slums haunted him in his dreams; dark, disease-ridden and ignored. It seemed _ludicrous_ really, that a man who killed for a living would be haunted not by blood, but by _dirt_ and _squaller_.

 _That_ , and then the turbulence of the Irish Civil War began.

He remembered his mother's exhausted, sallow face, each day that she traipsed home from her work in service. His father, of course, was nowhere to be seen most nights, as he indulged in practices that Philip now assumed, as an adult, were most unsanitary.

The suffocation of their family of six living in one room, simply separated by cloth hung from the ceiling, seemed to gnaw at his sanity and tolerance from as early an age as he could remember. By the time war broke out in 1914, he was a frustrated and furious boy of five, who already knew his life simply had to amount to more. As he watched the young men wave goodbye to their families in pursuit of gunfire and glory, Philip Lombard had also felt... _smug_ , as though he had come to a realisation that all his patriotic fellow human beings were too _stupid_ to see.

Never would he be tricked into such pageantry in the name of fighting another man's battles.

As a result, it became clear to Philip, before it occurred to anyone around him, that he was _different_ , even in the earliest days of his Catholic upbringing. As much as he had tried to conceal it, his _Unmarked_ status was known by all the other boys at school, as their streets were so overcrowded with families living on top of each other in order to live within commuting distance of the factories that there was no hope of privacy. He considered this 'close-knit' environment to be suffocating, as he was never alone with his thoughts, his confusion, his _rage_.

When someone wronged him, he could not fathom the concept preached to him by the priests in his school, or in church on a Sunday, of forgiveness and _'loving thy neighbour'_. Instead, Philip soon learnt he felt no sympathy when he threw a punch that made his former tormentors cry. He felt little to no connection to his fellow man, something he did not communicate to anyone, for he learnt early on that ordinary men would never understand.

 _"Y'are nothin', soft bastard!"_ the other boys would sneer at him, taunting him with kicks to the stomach that made him wretch in pain. _"Me Ma' say you're unmarked so y'must be nothin'!"_

He'd gotten his own back, of course. That summer, manhood had finally taken a hold on his frame. No longer was he the spindly child they remembered, so when they'd thrown a punch next time, he had been them to it. (He joined a bare-fist boxing club, as was usual for men in his suburb, having been so sick of every man he had ever known, especially his own father, pushing him around with foot and fist).

For years, he went about his business and paid no attention to his lack of a _Mark_. Once he learnt to fight, he realised it was a talent he could harness. He got involved with the nationalist groups in Dublin's underground, fighting with letterbox bombs and furious rallies against their English oppressors. It was a welcome release for his internal fury, his frustration for the world he found himself trapped within taken out on bricks through windows and mischief in dark alleys.

It was there he found others like himself, _Unmarked_ and _angry_. It was there he learnt to fight with knives instead of fists. It was there, in a turf war over territory, he killed for the first time...and felt the _euphoria_ it triggered through his veins.

Years later and it was now his living, to kill. It was not that he planned it this way – it had been much more of an opportune vocation. One day, when he had worked his way to the top of the gang hierarchy through his skills of intimidation and fear, he realised he could achieve much more elsewhere. His... _expertise_ for getting _rid of people quietly_ was in high demand with those in high places, who needed an anonymous face to do the deed. Then, just like that, he realised it was never a coincidence that was an _Unmarked_ man.

The money was nice, he had to admit. He abandoned Dublin not long after his first big contract kill, as it allowed him enough to finally leave behind the suffocation Dublin had come to represent for him. Using the funds he'd accumulated and hidden under his floorboards of his one bedroom pit, he had thrown himself onto the next ship to England – third class, _of course,_ for he did not yet have the wardrobe for anything grander. Arriving in London, he pulled in favours from contacts he had gained and from there he sat back and watched the jobs simply _roll_ in.

The thing about the likes of men who had the money to pay a killer, Philip realised, was that they usually, _usually,_ only wanted to kill those as equally powerful as themselves. Therefore, for the most part, he was hired to kill the scum of the earth; men whose _arrogance_ and _greed_ left them contributing nothing to the world and yet taking everything, while the likes of his mother had not a loaf of bread.

If he were an _ordinary_ man, he liked to think he still would _still_ feel nothing for those he killed in those first few years, considering they were the so-called 'un-killable' – serial killers, corrupt leaders, _the democratic opposition of corrupt leaders,_ rapists who mascaraed as politicians... Most _deserved_ no mercy.

That being said, there had been some whom he killed that could only be considered as collateral damage, later on; the tribe in Africa, who had lied to his face about the diamonds he had asked for; mobster's wives who walked in at just the wrong moment; and on one occasion, a crying baby. He _tried_ to avoid such instances, because _no one_ needed the blood of infants on their hands. It incurred so many more consequences and mess than was necessary, but sometimes, such events were unavoidable.

Besides, if there was ever a person to carry out the unavoidable, it was Philip.

Aside from that, he did not dwell on _why_ it was that he felt nothing when committing such an act. After all, what use was harbouring on questions he could not answer? He did not know _why_ he had the inhuman indifference that he did, just as he did not know _why_ he did not possess a _Mark_.

It simply was what it was.

He had no interest in romance either, so the lack of a soulmate, or the assurance of one appearing into his life thanks to some Mark on his skin, was insignificant to him. He did learn early on, however, that his ability to suppress his true motivations and reactions, instead projecting a natural charm was enough to get him women affections when he wanted them. By his early twenties, Philip _physically_ indulged in whomever took his fancy and, with practice, wooing women became comically easy to him, to the point it was almost dull; a simple game of cat and mouse.

No mouse ever had the patience of a cat.

Which is why, the day Philip first set eyes on Vera Claythorne, he had been most surprised by the way she stormed away from him. (He had not grown accustomed to women saying no to him, after all).

He painted a smirk on his face to keep from laughing aloud as she stormed off. He had been admiring her legs, all shapely and enticing, and the way her skirt had ridden up all the way to exposing her to top of her stockers. He was intrigued at first as to whether she had sat like that on purpose, for surely no woman in a conservative outfit such as the one she wore would be so unaware of an outfit mishap?

The answer came to him a moment later, however, when she insistent blank gaze had broken from the view out the window and seemed to sense his own on her, almost as though he had called out her name. The moment her sharp eyes locked onto his, even from across a carriage, Philip Lombard knew she was not like the women he came across, day in, day out.

Mostly, he knew because she did not submit; she did not downcast her own gaze in bashfulness, or flap flustered under his ungentlemanly scrutiny. No, instead, Vera had defied him with her eyes, pointedly pulling don her skirts and moving away from him in sharp, decisive movements.

He had already seen, in the few seconds their eyes had met, what kind of person she in fact was. She had no idea, _of course_ , just how exaggerated, unsubtle, ridiculous – _ludicrous –_ her disguise was to a trained eye such as his own. Having always had an ability to read people like open books, all he saw when he looked at Vera that day were smoke and mirrors. Her face clearly wiped aggressively clean of all rouge and powder, she wore a high-neck blouse and trimmed lime-charcoal skirt that settled at the shins – all clearly not attire in which she was comfortable by the way she fidgeted and walked rigidly, forever smoothing the fabric down. She did not even notice her garters were showing and would not have if it were not for the fact that she had caught him staring. She evidently did not wear this skirt often. He twisted his lips as he directed his gaze from the window, delighting in the way his photographic memory and vivid... _imagination_...allowed him to envisage a scenario much more satisfying than the one he would have to put up with in reality; one in which he followed her into the secluded carriage and fucked her against the wall, stockings, high-neck blouse and all.

She would _love_ it too – he knew that. The way her gaze lingered on him a second too long before her eyes flashed with anger – (anger that was too delayed to be sincere) – told him that.

Little did he know, of course, that he would end up stuck on an island of death with that very woman...and come out the other side closer to her than he had ever been to anyone.

* * *

 ** _V. E. Claythorne [Vera, Elizabeth]  
DOB: May 8th, 1914_**

 _Place of Birth: Chagford, Devon, England  
Status: Unmarked_

* * *

Vera Claythorne had never had much time for men, but when she had indulged, it had always been with those she was told she could not have; Alice Celanese's sweetheart when they had been eighteen and careless; the boss of her first teaching job; _Hugo..._

So, truly, it hadn't surprised her retrospectively that she had been drawn to Philip Lombard so gutturally and instantaneously. When they had both stood on the dock, it sunk in that the man who had so _vicariously_ been staring at her legs was too a guest of Mr. and Mrs. Owen... and suddenly she was glad. Something within her, that always fought against the grain, could not _wait_ to know him better, even if it was clear she shouldn't.

It was then she had felt her skin itch for the first time, the way the girls at school had always whispered about, when their _Marking_ would begin to appear. It had bothered her a lot in those days of puberty just why it was that she had to be one of the _Unmarked_ minority. They said it meant something bad, rather than good, that she would be 'trouble'. Her own _mother_ had been awful to her once it became clear she was not going to develop a _Soul Mark_ like all the other girls and boys. It seemed to solidify the uncomfortable disconnect that already existed between them, until, one day, when the time came when Vera was of marrying age, it was simply too much. Vera left home with no sorrow in her heart; instead she felt eagerness for the world that may reside outside she tiny Devonshire village.

So, like all others who had stifling upbringings in the countryside, Vera headed for London.

From there, she worked in schools, finding it _deathly_ boring but convincing herself that everyone felt that way. Perhaps that was why she found herself taking as many of the male staff members as lovers as she could, whether they had wives or not. She liked the thrill that accompanied them lying for her, her lying to get them alone... It was all a _game_.

Her mother always suggested she would be a harlot, since she had no _Soul Mark_ to suggest otherwise, so as she grew older, she asked herself, _why fight it?_ She _liked_ sex. Women weren't supposed to admit such things, of course, but she _did_. She adored the thrill of it; the ability to make the most ferocious and aloof of men _succumb_ and _submit_ to whatever she wanted. It was a heady drug in itself, never mind when it was combined with alcohol, which it usually was.

Such thoughts had come back to her at the dock, as the skin along her collarbone began to tingle and itch with an alien intensity. In an attempt to distract herself, Vera allowed herself to focus on the sharp lines of his face, just for a moment; the way his impressive jawline ticked when another man seemed to try to take charge, but relaxed upon catching her eye.

 _"Mister...?"_ she trailed, deliberately cornering him into telling her his name first. She attempted to do so in her most nonchalant of voices, already assessing that this was a man put off by intensity.

"Lombard... _Philip."_ Again, her skin had itched, in the most aggressive and burning of ways. She could see herself in his sunglasses and made sure that she did not squirm or react too much to his presence.

Somehow, she already knew that would not be wise.

* * *

 ** _P. Lombard_**

He had been incredibly surprised when he saw the enticing mystery brunette with the skirt and the stockings and the feisty eyes get off at the tiny station by the harbour and even more taken aback when she also walked down to the dock.

He felt her gaze sweeping over his face whenever he was turned away from her. The first time, this was no doubt an attempt to appear scathing of him, but afterward, he felt content and smug in the knowledge she kept looking. In his many a liaison with women, Philip Lombard knew this could only mean _one_ thing.

If there had been any room for doubt in his mind of her attraction to him, it dissipated under her fleeting, insistent glances.

When she asked his name, he was surprised by the guttural urges that surged through him at the sound of her voice. It frustrated him, considering she had said just one word. He was not a fifteen year old groping himself over dirty postcards behind the pub anymore _, for God's sake!_

He did not look at her again after that, enjoying the prospect of toying with her. Her room was down the corridor from his own, he'd noted as Mrs. Rogers accompanied her there. His ignored the uncomfortable tightening in his trousers at his thoughts digressed toward that of her being just a few short paces away, undressing herself...freeing her supple body from the restraints of that ridiculous disguise.

 _Good God,_ how he'd _love_ to rip that awful skirt off of her... preferably with his _teeth_.

He smirked to himself as he lit a cigarette and went about unpacking his case, laying his dinner suit out for pressing. Such outcomes, as enticing as they were as they layered in his imagination, would have to wait.

Something told him Miss Claythorne would not be easy prey.

* * *

 ** _V. E. Claythorne_**

After her run in with Mrs. Rogers below stairs, Vera felt rattled. She did not like being treated as though she was incompetent – she did not like being told she was wrong. She had simply been attempting to assess the building in which she resided, supposedly as an employee, after all! It was hardly an unjust expectation.

Consequently, when she had made her way into the drawing room to explore where she would not be challenged and come across Philip, she felt her tackles rise even higher.

"There's one in my room, too," he'd said as she had been gazing at yet another copy of the Ten Little Soldier Boys. She hadn't heard him come in, but she sensed that was his intention; sneaking up on people so he always had the upper hand. "I imagine there's one in every room."

"Well... ' _Soldier Island'._ It–it makes sense – s'amusing – " She found her tone was stiff, the tiny trace of a stutter even creeping into her speech under the weight of his presence. He spoke then about their hosts being inclined to whimsy over his crystal brandy glass; his words almost a slur. (She wondered if he'd been drinking before dinner, or perhaps that was simply her ignorance surrounding the Irish lilt that made her think so). She gazed over her shoulder toward him and instantly wished she hadn't; the sight of him in a perfectly fitted dinner suit making her _want_ – a most violent and urgent sensation that she had not expected and was most inconvenient. She did _not_ want to feel such a draw to a man who leered at her the way he did.

Instantly, she steeled herself to such urges, for she was here to work – actually work – and this man was nothing but trouble; trouble being something she could do to steer clear of, considering the reason for her leaving her last employment. "I cannot comment on our hosts."

His next words are almost a husk as he settled into a lounge chair, rolling the brandy in his hand. _"Good little secretary."_

Despite the low tone of the words, she knew he meant for her to hear them. She could hear the smirk he barely kept from his voice. He was taunting her.

Without the patience left in her to challenge him, she swallowed, knowing she had to quit the room. "Excuse me." Any longer in the company of such an arrogant man would not doubt bring out the side of her that she kept hidden; the real her, who lied and cheated through life to get what she wanted, who was indelicate, blunt, impatient and promiscuous and liked it; who no one understood.

As she went to pass him, she was surprised to find he halted her, blocking her route with his foot. He rose her eyes to her with a roll of the head, motioning with his glass. "We've got off on the wrong foot, haven't we?"

The question is low, not raised in tone; he wasn't really asking, but making a statement. She lowered her eyes to the floor, unable to look down on him in such a beautiful suit. Partially, the site of him below her gave her such a feeling power, arousal stoking so powerfully within her that she simply could not cope with. Mostly though, she did not want to blow her cover; she did not want this man to know her, to _see_ her... At least not until she knew him better.

"But you do have very pretty legs; it would be remiss not to admire them."

Vera ground her jaw at his audacity as his gaze dropped to openly gaze over legs.

 _That_ and he simply made her fucking _infuriated_.

* * *

 ** _P. Lombard_**

He could not help it; he'd simply _had_ to say it. He wanted to see that flash in her eyes. He wanted to see the _real_ Miss Claythorne again.

"Mr. Lombard!" And there she was. He knew that tone. This was a woman on the edge...and how he wished she'd snap.

"You seem to be under the impression that I am a particular kind of woman."

In his mind, visions of her skin, silhouetted and bare, flashed through his mind's eye and he had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing.

"And I can assure you I am not." She was looking him in the eye now, standing above him with a gaze that glinted with fury and spoke straight to his groin. "I do not like to be looked at."

He met her eyes and did not falter. He did not even blink; as was his way when he was in pursuit of prey.

Like the cat, he was ever-patient when he knew what he wanted, unfaltering and quiet. "I get instincts about people," he murmured, enjoying the way she squirmed under his stare. She swallowed hard, the movement of her throat stirring his chest. "I get an instinct about you."

He lowered his voice to a dramatic whisper, knowing by the dilation of her pupils and the way her chest rose and hell that he already had her – hook, line and sinker. "I think you're _pretending_."

He saw the panic in her frame before he saw it in her eyes. _Yes, little liar,_ he thought. _I see you._

Marston interrupted them then with his usual, ridiculous pomp. Philip had disliked him before he even spoke a word, the way he sauntered before a roomful of strangers as though they should all just about fall to their knees before him. He _despised_ such men and their entitlement. It made his fingers itch with murderous intent.

As Marston prattled on about the Corcoran, Philip felt his patience becoming dangerously frayed, mostly because the twat spoke to him as though they moved in the same circles, when they both knew full well he did not and had no intention of ever doing so. "Anyone who is anyone knows them." The boy was _so_ incredibly up his own arsehole, thought Philip. _Anyone who's anyone._ Who even _said_ such a thing? Philip was half tempted to rise to his feet and show the damned fool _just_ how much of a _someone_ he could be; someone to be feared, that is. (In fact, he'd been hired by the Corcoran for a hit or two, now he thought about it. What an image his petulant fool's face would make if he knew).

His jaw ticked as he watched the young man's mouth continue, regardless of the fact neither of the other souls in the room had contributed anything to the conversation.

As Marston asked for his drink, describing it _'pink as a virgin's blush'_ purely to instil a level of discomfort and a message of flirtation to Miss Claythorne, Philip was not sure why, but he really did not like that. He did not like the idea of other men making her squirm and fight her instincts – not when _he_ could be doing so. He did not like the idea of other men objectifying her gender before her, implying sexual relations in front of her, because that meant they were most likely imagining her, nude and sinful, in their depraved minds... Something that Philip Lombard suddenly decided should be a privilege only he could enjoy.

He focused on the awful Englishman's face either way, though not out of interest or want to do so, but in order to prevent himself showing Miss Claythorne too much of his interest – which, in that dress, was considerably difficult.

"Are you a betting man, Lombard?"

The boy seemed so intent on making a point. Philip couldn't help but flick his eyes to Miss Claythorne, who was nursing a sherry in his peripheral vision, knowing she was just the type to wager a risk, underneath it all.

"Depends." _If the bet involved Miss Claythorne..._

He then made an ignorant comment about war, only for Philip to suddenly lose all hope and interest in the boy. It _astounded_ him how those with such money and status could be so detached from the society they profit from so.

"So, how about it? The bet?"

He let his gaze linger back to Miss Claythorne then, enjoying the way she fidgeted and – barely – managed to keep from looking at him. He allowed his gaze to roam over her despite Marston's presence and watched her squeeze her thighs together beneath her dress – a move so slight he was not even sure she realised it. (The fact Marston could see his appreciation of Miss Claythorne made him feel territorial, like a tomcat staking his claim, which left him feeling high and powerful, as though he'd taken a hit of whatever powder Marston was so clearly high on.)

The blue silk clung to her in all the most agreeable of ways, the movement against her skin much more flattering than that ridiculous skirt she had worn on the train, which had seemed to hold her like a straight jacket. Granted, this dress bunched around her hips a little, but all that did was allow for an utterly tantalising display of her backside. It was a delightful dress, but something told him she was partial to cuts of cloth even more enticing than this... and that the body beneath could put even the finest silks to shame.

She had her own hand curled around her own middle, as though to hold herself together. He identified the feeling as the same he himself had felt watching her walk away on the train; that inward conflict to revert to complete animalistic mating rituals that almost, almost wins out. She turned her head, evidently hoping to candidly watch his face as he replied, but instead caught him looking right at her. Typically nonchalant as Miss Claythorne seemed desperate to be, she instantly turned her gaze away, but it was too late.

More cautious men would warn that Miss Claythorne _did_ in fact despise his leering behaviour and his blatant intentions, and perhaps it was true...but as Philip considered Marston's words, he realised her attraction to him was his instinct, so _of course_ it was right.

Little Miss Claythorne could lie and lie until the crows came home to roost to all the others on this island... but the odds of her doing so convincingly to Philip just feel from minuscule to absolute zero.

There was no point challenging the instinct of Philip Lombard, for you would always lose.

 _"The odds are too short."_ He directed the words at her, not the English fool who had actually asked, for the answer he gave was not answering that question.

It was answering the one that hung, massive and deathly silent, tangled in the fabric of his acquaintance with Miss Claythorne.

Marston left then, since neither Philip or Miss Claythorne were paying him any attention. The silence he left behind was stark as the delightfully stubborn woman before him still refused to shift her gaze, even now they were alone. Suddenly Philip felt the urge to do something he had done so very few times in his life, even if just for show: to apologise.

"Oh, _alright_ , Miss Claythorne!" he drawled begrudgingly, tipping back his head to drain what was left of his liquour. "If it'll make you happy – _I'm sorry for staring_." Except I'm honestly and entirely not.

He was not sure why he thought that would be convincing, or exactly why even said it, but either way, it wasn't.

"Mr Lombard – I doubt you are ever sorry for anything."

With that punchline, she took her own cue to leave. He felt his internal sexual appetite sag with disappointment at the prospect, but at least her quitting the room meant he could watch her body in that dress as she did.

She was _rejecting him._

Perhaps she deserved more respect than he had given her credit for. Women usually never saw through his ability to rid them of their clothing, never mind challenged him on it. Miss Claythorne, whether she liked it or not, imprinted herself into the canvas of Philip's life that day – her intrigue too great to be ignored.

He swallowed his frustration at her rejection, the burn of it unwelcome in his chest. "Smart girl," he called after her, inwardly scolding himself at the way his attempt to sound nonchalant came across so forced. With a deep breath, he retrieved a cigarette and poised it between his lips, feeling the familiar tick and tremor as his body anticipated the soothe of the smoke.

 _How intriguing... The little liar was perpetually tightly wound..._ He'd keep that in mind for future reference.

* * *

 ** _V. E. Claythorne_**

Throughout dinner, Vera also forgot of how her Mr. Lombard had set her blood boiling, instead enjoying civilised conversation with Judge Wargrave. It was a delightfully refreshing change, not to be looked at like a sitting duck for a while.

That being said, she had to _force_ herself not to be distracted by the way Mr. Lombard tipped his glass and downed his wine in one, or by the way he smirked upon the Judge's mention of girls sharpening hockey sticks. (He evidently liked the idea of overexcitable schoolgirls – which did not surprise her in the slightest).

That is, until conversation turned to Soul Markings.

"It's most _frightening_ , quite frankly, just how many _Unmarked_ young girls there are walking around these days. Such _sinful_ beings."

Vera barely contained her body's nature reaction upon Ms. Brent's words; a stiffen that had been conditioned into her after years of being laughed at and ridiculed. (On one occasion, even laughed at just prior to sex). _It's hardly someone's fault if they're born without one,_ she wanted to say, but she knew that would make her own Marking status obvious. So, instead, she remained quiet and observed.

"It's a reflection on the youth of today, I'm sure of it. All _quite_ too self-involved to deserve such destiny to be given to them," agreed the General with a typical stiff upper lip synonymous with the military. Vera shifted in her seat and picked at her food.

"I'm not sure it's quite as simple as that," she found herself saying, nonchalantly lifting her glass to sip on her wine. "I have come across many a girl with such an affliction in the class I teach and they seem neither self-involved _nor_ impetuous."

Beside her, there Judge seemed deep in thought. "While I appreciate your point, Miss Claythorne, I cannot help but assume a correlation when near-all those I have seen hang have been _Unmarked_ individuals."

Vera pursed her lips to keep from saying anything incriminating, the thought that the Judge might just be right – and therefore her mother, too, for that matter – making her feel a little bit ill.

"I myself always had the _Mark_ of my dear late husband," Ms. Brent began again and Vera found she had to clench her hand into the fabric of her dress under the table. Her voice was always so blasé, as though her norm should be that of everyone.

"I, too," agreed the General. "My wife, that is."

"I've never quite discovered whom mine is supposed to signify," said the Doctor in a voice that Vera already knew was falsely nonchalant. She could think of only one thing worse than no Mark, and that was having one and never finding the person whose initials were permanent on your skin.

Most tellingly, though completely unsurprisingly, Mr. Lombard remained silent on the issue. As the likes of Marston rattled on about how he had yet to meet anyone without one – _'So, it must be a lower classes thing'_ – Vera found herself wondering whose name marked his skin, considering that whomever it was was incredibly unfortunate.

Mr. Lombard on the other hand... Well, the idea of another woman's named marked into his skin seemed to irk her. As such a realisation, Vera found herself staring wordlessly at her plate. She really did not like the idea of that... But, _why_? He wasn't a _nice_ man. He was not even a _polite_ man... So why on earth did _she_ care?

After dinner, she stubbornly vacated and allowed the men to be left with their whiskey, their cigars and their stories. She despised such conventions, but despised women such as Ms. Brent more, who seemed to think that convention did anything other than hold an entire nation back from development and enlightenment.

"Are you _Marked_ , Miss Claythorne?"

The question was hardly a surprise; she knew Ms. Brent had been dying to ask since she had remained relatively silent on the subject at dinner. Now, Vera was poised and ready in her response, the same lifelong lie she had learnt to tell since puberty slipping easily from her tongue.

"Yes – since thirteen, I believe." She sipped her coffee and offered very little elaboration. "I haven't met him yet."

"Ah yes, well, I would not worry about that at your age – at least not for another year or two."

Vera gave her a tight-lip smile to keep from giving a verbal snipe she would later regret. _Count to ten, Vera._

In the moment of quiet that followed, static crackling and the whine of microphone began that nagged at Vera's ears... Then, a voice boomed throughout the house that would haunt her dreams for years to come.

 _"Ladies and gentlemen! Silence please! We have been charged with the following indictments..."_


	2. Chapter 2

Hello again - back by popular demand (and the fact I just cannot stop writing this).

MASSIVE thank you to my betas, williamholdens & evennstars - and to all those I have consulted with on the difficult nature of some elements of this chapter. T'was much appreciated! And, because I feel it needs to be said forever, a big, big thank you to Aidan Turner and Maeve Dermody, for making my life so much easier with their wonderfully layered performances.

Now for the serious, boring bit:  
I do not own/claim to own either Christie's characters or the BBC's adaptation. This is a work inspired by the wonder of both these materials and is for non profit only.

 **TRIGGER/LANGUAGE WARNING:**  
 **The N-word is used in this chapter. I considered long and hard about this and decided that historical and characteristic accuracy are very important to me, so the word has remained in this finished version. It is an awful, ugly word and therefore the use of it does NOT reflect my own views, but is to reflect the mindset of white mercenaries, like Philip, in the 1930s.**  
 **(Hint, be under no illusions, people. Philip Lombard is not a nice man, so I will not write him as such).**

II

* * *

 **P. Lombard**

As the booming narrator had declared all of the guests' true criminalities, and most importantly, his own, Philip felt a rising frustration within him. No one knowing him to be a trained killer in this house full of potentially problematic strangers had been a considerable advantage; upper hand and all that. When the voice had said his name, he'd been exasperated, rather than irritated, by its revelation. In fact, that his name had been accompanied by none other than Miss Claythorne'sfull name left him momentarily preoccupied. Drawing the last of his cigarette into his lungs, he came to the smug realisation that his instincts, once again, were right on the money.

He'd _knew_ he'd seen something calculating behind her eyes.

The adrenaline from the sudden tension in the room seemed to light a fire within him, like an addict having a first hit after weeks of drought. He marched down below stairs, overtaking Rogers – who moved at an aggravatingly slow pace – as the drive to pummel whomever was divulging secrets into that microphone set him on edge with effervescent energy. (He loved that he even got to make such a show of it by kicking down the door.)

It transpired to be a recording, of course – an amusingly cunning 'party game' to begin a weekend of chaos. Davis – or Detective Inspector Blore as it was soon revealed was his _real_ name – had been in Philip's mind as a liar from the moment he had attempted to say 'schnifter' in a supposedly upper-class English accent like Marston's. His all too meticulous pronunciation of specific phrases, such as 'tinned goods', had led Philip to barely bottle a snort at the dinner table. He'd managed to murmur"Davis has hidden depths," before stuffing meat into his mouth to keep from laughing when the man glared at him, bemused, from across the table.

No one could see what he could see; that the man's accent was as phoney as a three-pound note; that his entire identity was so clearly a farce.

That's how he knew, killers or not, he would always have an advantage over them all. They all thought they were so clever, when they were so clearly absolutely blind _._

When they'd all sat and discussed the awful, 'repugnant' lies disclosed by Mr. Owen on the record, Philip had barely suppressed the urge to laugh aloud. If their mystery host knew the exact number of men hehad slaughtered in Africa – a secret he had assumed he would take to his grave – then, quite obviously, all he knew about his other guests must also be the truth.

As they all gathered in the drawing room and everyone around him pretended to be outraged by the accusations, Philip found himself considering that this was the first time he heard of Miss Claythorne's Christian name: Vera _._ How fitting _…_ It was sharp, concise, unusual, non-biblical… It suited her.

Not long afterward, he heard her lie for the first time. He'd known it was a lie from the moment she had said it. To all others in the room – impetuous, foolish and gullible as they were – her wording warranted belief and outpours of sympathy.

To Philip, however, all that could be heard in her words was rehearsal.

"Cyril…the little boy…I…I was his governess." The tremor and hesitation in her voice felt like a performance, timed too well with too perfect an emotional balance. Her lies seemed to stir him up, calling to the fiend within him that thrived on deceit and power exchange; with the magnetic draw of a kindred spirit. Rocking on the balls of his feet, Philip pursed his lips and had to look at the floor; he suddenly did not trust his reactions to be nonchalant while listening to her, as fabrication after fabrication slipped from her lips like silky saliva. "He wasn't supposed to swim. He wasn't strong." Philip looked around him, taking in the enraptured faces of all those around him in disbelief – with the exception of Ms. Brent who simply looked as entitled as she always did. Somehow, they honestly didn't seem to hear it. How couldn't they hear it? Granted, she was quite possibly the most talented liar had ever come across…but no one lied perfectly. Miss Claythorne's main fault, for example, lay in the fact that everything was simply too precise. "But he sneaked off…and I…I wasn't a good enough swimmer. I just wasn't _good_ enough."

He could picture her expression without looking at her; the shine in her wide, expressive doe eyes. Vera Claythorne clearly had the skill that not even he had mastered in his twelve years of doing what he did: she had taught herself to believe her own lies. "I really tried to save him. His poor mother was broken – she was so broken…I had to be rescued…I almost drowned…who could say something like this?"

Air rushed in and out of his lungs as his expression remained pinched in restraint. In his periphery he could see the way Vera's chin almost wobbled, fighting back tears and nursing a brandy. Wrong as it may be, he found he was physically excitedsomewhat by her ability to spin a tale so well; more than that, he was aroused that she had the cunning to wantto do so. Listening to her false emotion made him envisage her close to him, under him, writhing against his hold and lying in his ear.

Lies…how interesting they made life's events.

 _"_ _You lie to us!" He could remember the way the blithering nigger's voice had wobbled, close to tears, and how it had made Philip want to laugh. He had him under his boot, pressed into the dirt sand of the Central African desert. Blood dripped from his dark, swollen face, and Philip could remember being almost fascinated by the way the crimson menace of blood was barely distinguishable against the man's ebony skin. It almost looked like rusty liquid mud, he had thought, and yet, his own hands had been bright scarlet with that same blood. The colour had been so bright that it was almost as though the man's life made his blood luminous on a white man's hands. Flexing his fists, Philip had struck again and again, determined to permanently silence the tribal translator. Obviously he could not have been allowed to survive, for his linguistic abilities would endanger the tale of what Philip and his (somewhat incompetent) men had done; it would have easily spread before Philip could have got two miles._

 _"_ _You! Lie!" He had kept shouting, so Philip had kept kicking, noting in that moment that he would need new boots after such a beating. The man had kept crying; sobs and howls for mercy spewing from him faster than his own blood could. "God will hold y-you in eternal damnation for what you done! Killing innocent women, children! – "_

 _The nigger had had brass, Philip would give him that; speaking out like that to a man that had just killed his entire tribe and could so easily kill him, too. The poor sod had no idea that Philip had never once possessed fear of God; no idea that his Catholicism had never stretched further than touching Mary-Alice behind the cloisters at fifteen years old after church on a Sunday._

 _He had laughed, enjoying the dismay and sorrow in the black man's eyes._

 _"_ _God? What God?" He had pressed his toe hard into the man's shoulder and felt it crack. As the dirty nigger had howled, Philip lowered had himself into a squat. "Don'ya get it by now?" Philip remembered how he had wiped his bloodstained hands across his own face, the blood of his enemies imitating the tribal paint that they wore in the name of their God. The streaks of red across his cheeks and down his nose had felt almost like armour, as though – with the blood of his enemies for all to see – no one could ever touch him. "In this world, I_ am _God."_

 _Withdrawing his Machete from his belt, Philip had ignored the man's shrieks for mercy, as he had done with his entire village before him. "No matter…" As he went to finish him off, he paused, holding the blade to his throat with a dancing smile. "You tell your God…" he said with a bloody index finger to his lips. "No diamonds?_ No deal."

Sipping his whiskey, he welcomed its familiar burn in his throat as it awoke him from his reverie. _Get a hold of yourself, Lombard._

"It was pinpoint accurate about me," he challenged, interrupting the sea of denial that spewed from the mouths of those around him. He considered that one last tribesman as he puffed out his chest with self-congratulatory pride, throughly enjoying the way Vera near-choked on her brandy as her gaze span round to meet him. That's right, darlin', he wanted to say. I am just as awful as you think I am. You should see me with a Machete.

Everyone around him spluttered their false surprise, despite all knowing that if anyonewas a criminal in that room, it was surely him.

Marston told his revelation of killing two children with the typical defensiveness of a coward, ironically not long before his life was snatched from him, officially making him the first to lose his life to Soldier Island. As Marston spluttered and choked after one too many sips of his drink, Philip felt the adrenaline sprint through his blood as he coasted the usual incredible high that accompanied danger…for those who were not swallowed by fear. (He felt naught but satisfaction at the sight of the smug, English bastard hanging over the abyss of death, though he found himself wondering who put the man there and wishing he had gotten there first).

He watched passively as Marston's body rigidly floundered in an attempt to cling to life; the room filled with sounds of pandemonium and panic, which set Philip alight with aggressive eagerness and energy rather than fear.

"He's – he's bleeding!" Vera shrieked, and suddenly Marston's death was a mere certainty as he began choking on his own blood, frothing crimson streaming from his rigid jaw. Philip remained where he had been stood throughout, poised by the fire – that is until Marston's deadweight form, splurging blood, toppled onto Miss Claythorne, almost crushing her into the settee. "Get him off! Get him off of me!" she screeched. Less than a second later, as though of its own accord, Philip felt his body surge forward and lift the Englishman off her, while the others seemed too incapacitated by panic to be any use to anyone.

He watched her for a moment after that, as she lay shaking and frightened on the settee, Marston's blood on her cheek with her lovely blue dress having ridden up to her knees. He gave over her and decided he very much liked to see her in such disarray; he very much liked to see her out of control. He cleared his throat and busied himself helping to carry Marston's body back to his room.

Yes…he liked that a lot.

* * *

 **V. E. Claythorne**

"It was pinpoint accurate about me."

She had tried to deny the arousal she had felt course through her at Mr. Lombard's murderous confession, mostly because she was so entirely astounded by it. But it was practically impossible to do so, because it left tremors running through her, deep in her stomach; her eyes were suddenly unable to stray from his face, fascinated by his truths. He admitted to such _abhorrent_ acts so _easily,_ so _earnestly,_ as though admitting one's sins was the _easiest_ thing in the world. She almost _envied_ him for it – especially since her own sins seemed to plague her more and more since she lost Hugo…

"I always knew someone would _blab._ "

He went on to describe the 'moron' men who had accompanied him to the African continent and helped him to kill negro tribesman after tribesman until the death count totalled twenty-one, when their tribe had not fulfilled their side of the bargain during a trade-off for diamonds.

"It's amazing how men can have an attack of conscience when they are safely tucked away in their beds." The threat in his voice sent an involuntary shiver up her spine that raised the hair on her arms. It was like a tiny, white-hot pinprick on her skin, triggering a jittering ball of energy in her gut that was barely contained by the deep breath she dragged into her lungs.

Most tantalising about the way he spoke though was the way he sounded _proud_ of it all. He was not _ashamed_ of the monster he was. _No_ – Philip Lombard _thrived_ on it.

She then watched in horror as Marston began choking, his body falling atop her. She dropped her brandy instantly and cowered under the deadweight of his convulsing body, feeling his blood spurt onto her face. Panicked screeches and cries for help escaped her without thought, which a small part of her found frustrating, because it made her seem _weak._ What she did _not_ expect was for Mr. Lombard to help her as instantaneously as he did, as he had seemed to look almost _bored_ just a second before. He pulled Marston from her, his chest heaving as though he had been running for miles. As she curled into the fabric of the settee in shock, she felt her own body reacting the same, heaving for breath and shaking with adrenaline.

She watched him lug Marston's body, now confirmed dead, up over one shoulder (with the assistance of the other able-bodied men in the room) and toward his bedroom. Vera was left reeling, not with fear as she expected, but with the desire to chase after him.

* * *

A. R. Marston [Anthony, Reginald]

DOB: June 12th, 1915

Place of Birth: The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England

Status: Marked

Death: August 9th, 1939

* * *

 **P. Lombard**

 _"_ _I was never a man for calm,"_ he'd said to the General the next morning, teetering on the bottom step of the staircase. He could feel it coming, 'the storm', as he had put it. He could feel the itch it sent over his skin, the impatience to strike first almost overwhelming.

He'd meant it, too – he wasn't. He simply could _not_ handle quiet. He'd fidget at silent dinner tables, drinking more wine than he should, simply to keep his hands busy. He had always thought that when he finally fled Dublin and its chaos, he'd be _grateful_ for the lack of suffocation, but instead found that his first flat in London's outskirts was _so_ quiet it almost drove him _mad._ He needed stimuli, distractions, _entertainment…_ Suffice to say, he had ended up bringing multiple women back to that flat at night – at _once_.

He had not slept the night after Marston's murder, opting instead to remain poised in the armchair in his room in case whoever it was that killed him made an appearance. Philip even contemplated snorting a gram or two of the dead bastard's coke to help him stay alert. However, in the next moment, he had decided against it, realising that while it _may_ prevent sleep, it would also leave him _wired… Not wise_ when he was just a stone's throw away from the likes of Miss Claythrone.

 _Vera…_

She came down for breakfast looking recognisably shaken by the events that had taken place the night before and the announcement of Mrs. Rogers' death that morning. Her hair, perfectly curled upon their first meeting, was straight and natural, falling slightly from the pins she haphazardly put in place. The dark circles under her eyes told him she did not sleep either, though it was clear this was due to worry and guilt – the latter of which being a disposition Philip Lombard was fortunate enough not to suffer with.

It was at breakfast that morning that he witnessed Vera's sharp mind in action for the first time. She became fixated on the fact that two solider figures had disappeared from the table, insistent that the killer took them as they represented the two lives he had taken. First Marston, now Mrs. Rogers, the strange, ghostly maid.

"None of you moved them…?" she questioned with a hint of doubt as they all attempted to be interested in the boiled eggs Rogers had placed in front of them. "Was it _you,_ Doctor?"

Busy wolfing down his breakfast, Philip flicked his eyes to her momentarily, watching as the man turned slowly on his heel, clearly holding in an exclamation. _Not wise to throw accusations out loud, Little Liar._

 _"_ _No,"_ denied Doctor Armstrong, predictably in a patronising tone. It was clear that the medical man did not think much of women.

"How did Mrs. Rogers _die?"_ Vera challenged, ignoring the food in front of her as she went on the offensive.

"I have no idea," the Doctor breathed, evidently close to the end of his tether.

"Did you give her _something?"_ Her words came much faster than they had in any conversation the day before.

" _Yes –_ a mild sedative."

Philip could not help but watch her during this exchange and note she was fraying a little. His face remained nonchalant as he rolled his tongue over his teeth and swallowed the remainder of his food.

"Did you give her _too much?"_

Philipresisted the urge to roll his eyes at her careless, panicked reaction. _Careful, Sweetheart_ … _Never show them your hand_. Sipping his tea, he inwardly shook his head.

"It's the poem – it's the _poem_ , don't you _see? Ten Little Soldier Boys…"_ Her words came even faster. "There were ten of them and _ten of us_ and now there's _eight – "_

Rogers moved like a shadow behind him, claiming to go about preparing for Narrocott's arrival. Philip found his gaze following the man out the room. He did not trust him; he hadn't since he claimed to have blindly followed orders with the record. It all seemed _far_ too convenient.

"Tony Marston was _young_ and _strong._ He didn't die from some _stimulant –_ " She pulled up short and shifted in her seat. "Perhaps he was _poisoned_ – and – _and_ – Mrs. Rogers, perhaps she was given too much! What drugs _do_ you have in your medical bag, Doctor?"

Just like that, Philip learnt that, though rash and overemotional, there was a particular logic and calculation to the mind of Miss Vera Claythorne. If it were up to the other minds in that room, Philip was sure it would have taken them _days_ longer to notice the figures were even missing. That… _and_ she had yet to say anything that was not rooted in sound reasoning.

He took her in as she desperately grappled for control, all tense in that pretty, pleated cream blouse, and he almost felt _smug_ on her behalf. _What a clever little liar you are._

* * *

 **V. E. Claythorne**

She stalked into the library seeking seclusion, feeling the rouge of embarrassment heating her cheeks. That _ridiculous, spineless_ fool of a Doctor, having thrown the contents of her suitcase, stockings and all, _all over_ the floor like some ten year old boy, had indeed proved her wrong in her accusations. He did _not_ have anything other than mild sedatives…but she _knew_ she was onto something. The figures had been _moved._ They were symbolic – she just _knew it._

Her body seemed to be wracked with a tiny, intermittent tremor that meant sitting still was difficult. It had become very grey outside and she sighed at the sight of it. Such overcast always made her feel boxed in, even when she was out in the open air.

She tried to calm herself by periodically folding her possessions and placing them, one by one, back into her suitcase. As she ran her fingers over her stockings, she prayed that Armstrong's boisterous behaviour had not rendered them ruined. She could scarcely afford another decent pair after her stagnant employment status of late.

It was, of _course_ , just as she handled such delicates that Philip walked in. She raised her head to the sound of his steps, watching as he walked past her without acknowledgement and retrieved a cigarette from the box on the table. He lit it before turning back toward the door. She watched his movements and noted he seemed too _at ease._ It irked her that he could be so calm. Why couldn't she?

 _Perhaps because you are not a cold-blooded killer,_ she told herself.

Then – "Did you _really_ kill all those men?"

She has no idea why she said it, for she already knew what his reply would be. Perhaps a part of her was hoping that it was not true…though she suspected that it was because a _greater_ part of her hoped it _was._

The look he gave her was impassive, unimpressed – as though he had expected more from her. " _Yes, Miss Claythorne,"_ he drawled in a deadpan voice that rang with boredom. "I _did_ kill _'all those men'_." His tone was almost mocking, as though he was judging her for wanting to believe he was anything other than a murderer. Perhaps he _was_. "And more," he continued, and she shifted her gaze from the floor to his impassive, handsome face, to the smoke that billowed from his lips and back again.

"Why?" she asked. There was something rather fascinating about hearing him _say it._ Such truths Mr. Lombard told…

Stepping further back into the room toward her, his expression with grave with the weight of truth, as though he was a parental figure telling a child the grim realities of life. "It seemed like a good idea, at the time."

 _At the time?_ She hadn't expected him to say that. So perhaps he _did_ regret? Somehow, she doubted it. Perhaps he had nightmares, too?

"They had something I wanted," he explained plainly. "In _this_ case it was diamonds…worth more than a few lives."

No, in that moment, regret and remorse were emotions that Vera was certain Philip Lombard was incapable of. She almost envied him… but the bleak picture he painted frightened her too much. Such men were terrifying in their ability to take whatever they wanted from whomever happened to get in their way…even if those people were complete innocents. _That,_ no matter _how_ handsome the man, Vera would _never_ be able to swallow.

She busied herself with folding the rest of her clothing into her case, attempting to distract her thoughts from Philip at the centre of a merciless, bloody massacre.

"What about _you?"_ he asked then and she looked up, confused. He neared her again, seemingly unhappy with the disapproving look on her face. "What did _you_ want?"

She felt her eye twitch as she squinted at him in confusion. Her expression hardened as she realised what he was implying: that _she_ was as bad. The realisation resembled icy water down her back. He _knew._ He _knew_ she was lying about Cyril… What's more – he was implying that made _her_ like _him!_

"I nearly _drowned!"_ she asserted in a solid voice, not bothering to hide her offence. "I _failed_ to save a little boy in my care." It wasn't as though _that_ was a lie. She _had._ "And there is not one moment of _every day_ that I am not sorry for that! Why aren't _you?"_

It wasn't as though _that_ was a lie, either. Cyril haunted her more and more with each day that passed. Without Hugo, it was becoming hard to see why she had done what she had, just _why_ she had let little Cyril drown. It seemed like a whole other world from her life now, as though she had been an entirely separate person then. That being said, if it meant Hugo would come back to her, she would do it all again.

So, out of habit more than anything, she let the lie slip from her lips, despite the fact that Philip Lombard appeared to be nothing but honest with her about _his_ sins.

Perhaps _that_ was his weakness. One day, confidence might just surround him in such a heavy cloud that it could leave him blind…and what was a cold-blooded killer without his sight?

"I _know_ what I am." His tone had turned deep with an edge she did not like. "I always knew it would catch up with me." She swallowed, once again envious of his ability to accept the hand of God without repentance and without _fear_. Almost wistfully, his gaze left her as he turned on his heel, his voice becoming soft, as though reaching a spiritual realisation as he took a long pull of smoke into his lungs. "And here it is…"

If Vera had been shaken prior to their conversation, Philip left her in a state of restlessness.

He _knew –_ quite clearly he knew – that she had let little Cyril die. _No one else_ she had ever told that lie to had seen through it, besides Hugo…and _he_ hadn't seen through it because of some uncanny ability of massive intellect. _No –_ Hugo had simply doubted her word because she forgot that he knew how fast she could run.

Philip Lombard, somehow – God only _knew_ how – saw through her most well crafted, most _expertly tested_ lie…and it left her feeling naked and bare. For if she did not have lies, then she had no defence against him – a cold-blooded _killer_ … None at all.

She had made her way outside after that, finding herself stuck in the company of Ms. Brent, who began dishing out yet more stinging and judgemental comments about Vera and everyone else on the island, aside from the Judge. She rose her eyes to Ms. Brent in shock as she began explaining who it was she had killed, how the girl she took in and raised fell pregnant and so she threw her, quite literally, out of the house. The girl then went and jumped in front of a train – an outcome that seemed to affect the older woman very little. Vera was staggered by the woman's ability to place all blame outside herself, as she curtly claimed that the young girl's immoral tendencies and inability to do anything other than give in to the 'melodrama' within her own mind meant her death was both unsurprising and deserved. Vera felt ill at the thought of the poor young girl, barely out of childhood, without any hope left, considering how close she _herself_ had come to unwanted pregnancy out of wedlock. Her own mother, sadly, would probably have reacted much the same.

"Your Mark…" Vera suddenly questioned, wanting to put Ms. Brent under scrutiny for a change. "If you don't mind my asking, what kind is it again? I know you said, at dinner, but I have a terrible memory. Initials, was it?" She kept her tone light and friendly as she continued to allow Ms. Brent to wrap her knitting wool around her hands.

Ms Brent considered her for a beat or two, but smiled. "Yes. Of my late husband."

"I have always thought that those without Marks are so unfortunate." She held eye contact in an attempt to remain nonchalant. "It's such a wonderfully poetic concept, is it not? To know the initials of the soul meant for you, or to know what your parting words from this world will be…"

As the lie slipped from her mouth with ease and grace, Ms. Brent regarded her wistfully.

"Yes, I do agree." She then halted her movements to sip her tea. "I've often thought that they do add something to a woman's beauty, having such an intimate detail hidden beneath layers of clothes for only one's most intimate life partners to find." _So, your Mark is_ hidden _then,_ Vera thought smugly as she took in the older woman's high-necked blouse, cardigan, long skirt and stockings. Well, that is if she in fact had one _at all._

By the end of that same day, Vera's suspicions of lies about Marks were forgotten, as whoever killed Mrs. Rogers and Anthony Marston had beaten General MacArthur to death over the back of the head. She tried not to think too much about what he had said to her that morning, not an hour before it happened: that the end was coming for all of them and she would understand someday the relief the thought of death brought him. Despite the fact she had predicted it over breakfast, the weight of the fact she had been right about a cunning killer being amongst them sent her into a panic.

She did not want to die.

She found herself stood at the break of the surf; wet, cold sand squelching between her toes as the dusk sky was blanketed with heavy, black clouds and winds that whipped at her hair, leaving her face numb. A hand bracing her chest, she felt her breathing pattern and heartbeat continue to race. She _needed_ to get out. She _had_ to get out of here.

The sea perpetually reminded her of what she had done… The shore reminded her of her hesitation, her callous decision that day…to let a little boy run down to the water to swim tothe rocks, to _encourage_ him to do so, _knowing_ he would never make it.

Water was always a reminder… If anything, she was _terrified_ of water these days. It brought such guilt and anxiety over her…but, as strong as her fear she may be, her desire to live was stronger.

Just like that, she ran for it, wading into the icy, murky waters with a sudden fiery determination. She had not been near the sea since… _that day…_ but now her body's new fear of the water took a back seat. She could not stay here; she would _die_ here. The killer, most likely that _awful, sinful_ Philip Lombard, would butcher them all. She would not be one of them.

Salt water collided with her front and into her mouth. The impending thunderstorm had almost arrived and the force of the waves were violent and brutal. She could swim – _really_ swim. She _knew_ that. After all, she'd been able to stay afloat for a good long while waiting for someone to discover Cyril and herself… She _could_ swim. She could make it to the mainland. She _could_ get out of here.

As the water soaked her skirt and nearly lapped at her hips, she heard the Judge, shouting for her from the shore. "I have to go!" she exclaimed simply, because she had no other words for the urgency she felt through her veins.

The Judge, seemingly fragile and unsteady on his feet though he was, managed to take her arm and waist and walk her back to the shore. She remembered thinking, what a _nice_ man, as he offered her his coat and walked her all the way back to the house, his own trousers now sopping, leaving her first manic episode while on Soldier Island to be washed away with the tide.


	3. Chapter 3

MASSIVE THANK YOU TO MY BETA/GENERAL IDEA BOUNCING SHIELD evennstars 3 She is the reason this gets out to you making any sense... This story has come such a long way (It's now almost 40k words!) so I'm so thankful to have my writings peeps to be my lifejacket so I don't drown in it...

This chapter contains a curveball... See if you can catch it... A certain someone's telling porkys;)

Now for the serious, boring bit:  
I do not own/claim to own either Christie's characters or the BBC's adaptation. This is a work inspired by the wonder of both these materials and is for non profit only.

* * *

III

* * *

 **P. Lombard**

When the blithering doctor had forced them all awake with his girlish _wailing,_ even Philip was surprised at the slaughter that greeted them on the kitchen floor: Rogers, cold as ice, disembowelled, his innards spread around him with a level of brutality Philip had seen only carried out by Africa's barbaric negro tribes. He had not expected whomever _cowardly_ poisoned Marston's glass to be capable of a violent, intimate crime such as this.

He had been the fourth person to die, preceded twenty-four hours earlier by the General MacArthur, whose head had been bashed in as he sat admiring the shoreline. It was then that it became clear to all those who remained that the death of Mrs. Rogers in her sleep, then Marston over a whiskey, were never of natural causes. The military man's blood splattered over the rock face served as a very real reminder that there was a killer on Soldier Island.

Philip felt satisfied and proud, despite everything, because it all meant clever, _demanding_ Vera _was_ right _._

When Ms. Brent had flailed through the door to tell of the General's demise, Philip had been the first out to inspect the body, while Blore, or _Tubs_ as he liked to call him after that first night, tailed him closely like a ridiculous lapdog. The scene told of a careless kill, a _cowardly_ kill really, since the poor man had been hit from behind. Philip, along with Armstrong and Tubs, wrapped him up in a throw and carried him back to the house. By the time they reached the hallway, Vera, Judge Wargrave and Ms. Brent were poised anxiously at the foot of the staircase waiting for them.

As they dropped the body to the stone floor with a thump, muscles burning for rest, the General's head rolled, exposing the bloody gore of his death before the ladies.

Instantly, Philip's hand shot out toward Vera. "Don't look!" he called out suddenly. The warning came without thought and they left him perplexed as to where it had come from. _Why on earth had he said that?_

Later that day, as darkness fell with a raging rainstorm, all the remaining guests of Soldier Island gathered in the library to keep an eye on one another. Philip noticed before anyone that Vera was missing - the Judge too. He frowned and promptly excused himself to check her room, only to find it empty. He considered searching for her, the others be damned, but decided against it. Tubs and Armstrong were already suspicious of him since that morning when he had hastily pulled out his revolver upon mistaking Rogers for the killer. Instead, he simply made his way back to the library and seated himself by the window, across from others and privately wondered where she could be.

His questions were answered not long afterward, when Vera appeared through the door of the library, sodden from head to toe. The Judge held her around her middle as her body seemed to shudder and shiver violently of its own accord. Possessiveness shot through Philip at the contact, which he had not been expecting. He swallowed it with the self-restraint he had mastered years ago and focused instead on considering _why_ it was Vera had been wondering around enough to almost catch her death. Perhaps he had been wrong about her; perhaps Vera Claythorne was a trifle more emotional, and _careless,_ than he had thought her to be.

Her skin was so pale it was almost translucent and blue, while her lovely cream blouse was _literally_ translucent as stuck to her like a second skin, her brazier nearly visible. Philip's gaze, like magnets to their north pole, were drawn inevitably to the sight and felt his trousers become considerably less comfortable.

"Quick, Lombard! The blanket – behind you!"

He leapt up at the Judge's words, despite the fact they were an order. (He did not follow orders from anyone…but he found himself retrieving said blanket without lag or complaint. It was for _Vera,_ he justified to himself – _not_ the Judge).

"Here," Philip murmured as he reached her side, ignoring the Judge's offer of a hand to pass the blanket along. He wrapped it around her back, letting his thumb graze her shoulder and upper arm as he did so, unseen by the rest of the room. She took the layer gratefully, but did not look at him.

The temperature of her skin made him fantasise about touching her hot again with his hands and his mouth. For a considerable percentage of the rest of the evening, he thought of little else, (despite the fact there were many more life threatening issues that should have demanded his mental attention). It _was_ justified though, he supposed. After all, a man was entitled to _some_ distractions when there was a killer hunting him down.

Fast forward to the next morning and Philip considered this while he was attempting to scrub Roger's guts out of the wood store floor. He was _slipping_. How was it that this killer had been able to move to kill _again right under his nose?_ Perhaps Miss Claythorne was an unwelcome distraction after all.

"So, she's right – it is the poem!" Armstrong breathed from behind him earlier that morning as he was busy leaning over Rogers' corpse, inspecting it. As Vera hurried toward the kitchen, Philip had been momentarily taken aback by her appearance – her hair jagged and straight, unkempt, while her eyes were now fully shadowed by dark, black rings. So much so was her visual deterioration that suddenly his own lack of sleep (and obsessive lookout posture from his armchair) suddenly seemed insignificant in comparison. She took one look at the remains of poor Mr. Rogers and began retching onto the floor behind her, the sight of guts evidently too much for her. _Funny_ , Philip thought. He was almost surprised to see such a reaction in people… He often forgot that most _ordinary_ people were not used to such things.

"But, it's _fucked, Mr. Unknown Owen,_ because 'six little soldiers boys played with a hive - a bumblebee stung one and then there were five' and there _is_ no hive here!" The Doctor's tone was becoming truly fucking hysterical, so much so that Philip raised his gaze from the body in utter disbelief, looking up disapprovingly from under his dark brows. _Was_ this man in fact a _man_ at all?

"So – so what are you going to do now, Mr. Unknown Owen?! You're fucked! You're fucked!––" He was screeching, shouting at no one, as though this killer, Mr. 'Unknown Owen', would suddenly reveal himself. His tone was so unbearably shrill that Philip felt his fists clench at his side, ready to shut the man up if he carried on for one more moment.

Ironically, he did not have to, as they all watched Vera Claythorne suddenly lash out and strike the hysterical _woman_ of a doctor right across his face – therefore proving she was more of a _man_ than Armstrong would ever be. The Doctor was silent then, as shocked as the rest of the room – aside from Philip, of course. He simply found himself smirking, proud of her for doing what they all wanted. _Adda' girl._

"Now, get dressed," she asserted calmly, despite the Doctor's look of sheer disbelief. "We will all get dressed and I will make coffee… Ms. Brent, shall we?"

* * *

V. E. Claythorne

At near half past eight in the morning, since they were all awake from Armstrong's hysteric outburst, Vera found herself obsessively making coffee for anyone that would take it. She, herself, barely drank any, realising the last thing she needed was a stimulant with her current state of jitters.

She had been washing dishes in the kitchen with Wargrave, enjoying the serenity of the mundane, until, that is, she realised she was alone with him, in a room full of kitchen utensils. _Sharp_ kitchen utensils.

She wasn't sure what it was, but she felt an urge to check on Ms. Brent, finding that her feet moved of their own accord toward the library. Opening the door by her electric lamp, she was somehow unsurprised to find her dead, in the armchair where Vera had left her to her coffee. Her knitting needle was skewered into her neck, but her posture could almost be confused with sleeping, as though whomever had stabbed her with it had been able to grab it from her and still stab her without struggle.

Next thing she knew, Vera was in the dining room and, as she expected by now, another soldier figure was missing. Equally calmly, she then made her way to the gong, deciding that Armstrong's method of announcing the killer had struck was surprisingly poetic, she struck it five times to signify the fifth death amongst them. The others came running from their respective locations, all looking fearful and bewildered. All but Philip, that is. _His_ eyes sparked with a burning eagerness, as though he was a raging bull stood before a scarlet flag.

Together, they lifted Ms. Brent to her room and laid her to rest on her bed. Philip immediately withdrew just enough to light himself a cigarette. Spellbound, Vera watched the masterful nonchalance of his movements. He poised his cigarette in such a relaxed manner, despite his hand still being stained bright scarlet with Rogers' blood.

In that moment, she finally understood the primal nature beneath the unperturbed, smooth exterior of the man; the blood on his hands almost seemed to _suit him,_ as ridiculous and atrocious as that sounded. It was his _warpaint._

"Well, I suppose, with no Rogers, I should think about lunch," she said unevenly, watching Philip as he stared into space in Ms. Brent's direction, his eyes narrow, clearly lost in thought.

"I could eat a scabby 'orse," Blore confirmed heartily, his East-end accent laying on thick.

At such a comment, Vera blinked, put out by his enthusiasm, considering they were stood before a corpse that was _still warm._ "You're _actually_ hungry?"

Blore seemed bemused by her offence. "Well… its 'eavy work – dealing with Rogers. _You're_ the one suggesting lunch…"

Her arms were firmly crossed against her chest as she attempted to restrain her agitation. " _Only_ because that's what one _does_ at this time of day!" she snapped, fidgeting on her feet. "No, I'm not hungry – how could you _possibly_ be _hungry_?"

"Oi, _you_ …" Blore murmured lowly, clearly attempting to be threatening. "Don't go implyin'… or casting aspersions." His eyes shifting between her and Philip, as though testing them both on their suspicions. "I got nothin' to do with this! I've got nothing to do with any of it! Just because I said I was hungry – I _am_ hungry – it doesn't prove a single thing!" Vera was already bored with his blithering, because while he could be telling the truth, all his talking seemed to do is add weight to the argument against him. She rolled her eyes as the 'th' in 'thing' became an 'f' in Blore's speech, not quite believing that the pale, blotchy man opposite her, prattling away, was of the same species as the dark Irishman to her right.

"I'm going to get dressed," the policeman dismissed as he stormed from the room in his blood-soaked pyjamas. Vera shifted on her toes, not sure where to look as her eyes flitted from wall to ceiling to floor. Philip took another drag and seemed only minimally bemused by Blore's behaviour, having not moved a muscle. His eyes sort out hers from his perch, a frown now settled between his brows – as though to say, _'Do you have any idea what that was about?'_

Then suddenly, Blore was back, storming back into the room as though someone had lit a fire behind him. His eyes were tight with as sudden rage and Vera felt her spine straighten as she held her ground. Blore's face contorted with the sudden fury in him as he spoke and Vera had to look down at the floor to keep from stepping forward and striking him. "The _whole_ morning, dragging Rogers around, clearing up _guts –_ without so much as a cup of tea to wet me whistle – and _you –_ You look at me like I – "

Philip regarded the Detective with the same impassive look of disappointed that he always had…but sudden raised his hand toward the man. " – _Calm._ _Down,"_ he chastised lowly, almost like Vera once had to Cyril. Remaining perfectly still, Vera snapped his eyes to Philip then. He was _defending her?_ Actively safeguarding her?

Blore evidently did not like it. His face was stoic, rage ticking his lip. He fidgeted then, as though debating whether the threat in Philip's telling off was a reproach worth taking seriously. He clearly decided it was not, as in the next moment Blore raised an aggressive index finger at her, having looked for a moment before as though he was about to leave the room again. "You've got some _front_ , love!" His voice was a strange combination of a harsh whisper and a hiss and Vera felt the venom in it from across the room. She stood her ground and squared her shoulders as he continued his criticism. "You've got some _right_ brass neck!"

Finally, he stalked away and she could breathe deeply again. Raising her eyes to Philip, she noted he was sinfully sucking on his cigarette as before. He had his eyebrows raised, as though amused by what he had just witnessed. "Don't go downstairs on your own – not with those two," he advised, inhaling as he suddenly made his way to quit the room himself.

Vera frowned, suddenly uneven on her feet as she realised she was unsure of who it was he was referring to. _Wait,_ she thought. _Who? What did he know?_ "What, Wargrave and Armstrong?"

 _"Mm-hm,"_ he hummed in agreement as he reached the door, unable to speak as his throat was filled with smoke. At the threshold, he turned back to her and suddenly she noted his bare chest for the first time. The thick, dark hair across his sternum was clearly visible as he had, no doubt _purposefully_ , tied the gown very loosely at his hips. The ungodly _bastard_ looked at her with that same calm nonchalance, despite the fact that they both knew she struggled not to be distracted by his exposed skin. "You wait up here for me," he murmured confidently with a nod, smoke billowing from his lips and settling into the air to linger along with the words he left behind.

The weight of the statement left her winded, weighted to her spot beside Ms. Brent's corpse for a long moment as she attempted to decipher it. It was the first time he had ever explicitly confirmed whatever it was that seemed to entwine the two of them as allies…but did he _mean_ it? It could easily be a ploy, to draw her in and make her trust him, only for him to kill her in her sleep. Somehow though, she doubted it. Something told her that if Philip were the killer, he would be proud of that fact.

She moved to leave the room anyway, not liking the idea of allowing herself to become a sitting duck simply because an attractive man said so. Despite her slight suspicion of the Irishman's intentions, she found the seductive promise that had lingered in his voice spiked hope within her that she _was_ going to survive this. With Philip, she _could_ survive this… If, _of course_ , he was not in fact the killer himself.

But if he was, part of her knew whatever fate lay waiting for her was predetermined by a higher power by this point.

As she teetered on the metaphorical edge of whatever abyss was threatening to swallow her up, she steeled herself to outsiders so they would not see her struggle. (Lack of sleep really had begun to take it's tole, she realised, when she began to see Cyril round dark corners). She held the bannister tight as she descended the stairs as she was permanently shaky, high with the adrenaline of feeling like prey being hunted.

She considered what Philip had said again just as he came bounding down the staircase behind her, in a suddenly flurry of anger and panic, shouting that everyone had to gather _right now_ because _someone had stolen his 'fucking gun'_. She considered the suggestive promise that had shadowed his words to her. _You wait up here for me._ In that moment, she smirked to herself. _Oh, Mr. Lombard… What if I get to you first?_

She seated herself on second to bottom step of the staircase and leant against the bannister, watching him as he stormed past, furious and on a rampage of accusations against everyone – except her, that is. The conversation went round and round in circles – an accusation, followed by a denial; a reputing accusation in defence; another denial. She began to feel sick with it, pressing her fingers to the bridge of her nose as she attempted to halt the onslaught of an oncoming headache. _Why did men always have to be so, god-damn assertive? They may as well all just have a pissing contest!_

"It was _locked,_ which _means_ there must be a _master key,_ " Philip continued dryly.

The Judge seemed to agree. "Rogers must have had a master key."

Instantly, of course, Armstrong had to pipe in, loudly and with a tone that always sounded as though he was either about to scream or cry. "You two dealt with the body!"

"And you _found_ it!" Philip countered, halting his barefoot pacing on the tiled floor with both his hands poised on his hips. "Or _did_ you?" He neared the man with the precision and intimidation of a bird circling its pray, his voice dropping an octave. "You _shrieking_ like a woman – was that a bit of _amateur dramatics_ , was it?"

Philip's desired effect worked like a charm, as Armstrong's frustration at being accused and insulted all at once meant his voice rose to a whine and wobbled as though he was _indeed_ going to cry like a stereotypical woman. "I did _nothing_ to Rogers. I didn't take any master key, we don't even know if there _is_ a master key and we only had your word that the gun was stolen! _You_ could've taken it."

Vera paused. She hadn't considered that. This _could_ be a rouse…but as she observed the tick in Philip's jaw and the agitation in his pacing, she decided against it. He appeared to grind his teeth as his voice dropped even further until Vera almost had to strain to listen. "Why would I steal my own gun?"

Armstrong's face was a picture of "I don't know why you'd do anything, Lombard! I don't know why you killed _Rogers_ or Miss _Brent_ or _MacArthur – "_

" – I didn't kill them," Philip replied mutedly, as though he had been asked the sum of two plus two.

"Well, you _would_ say that, wouldn't you? Just like you'd say that your gun was stolen!"

Vera rolled her neck as her eyes trained on Philip during this exchange. She had decided not far into this entire ordeal that Doctor Armstrong was perhaps her least favourite person she had met on this island, if not in her entire life _._ The tone of his voice made her skin crawl in its pathetic breaking and cracking and his constant jittery behaviour and hysterical outbursts put her on such an edge herself that she wished she hadn't simply slapped him that morning. That, and he was even more rude about women than anyone else there. Suddenly, she was certain that the man disgusted her more than she was of anything else.

As Philip neared Armstrong, almost coming nose to nose with the man, Vera watched Armstrong step back, despite Philip's slightly shorter and certainly leaner frame. "You really are a _first-class_ , five-star, solid gold _fucking_ moron," Philip scorned in a deathly tone, though he seemed to preninciating his words for maximum embarrassment.

" _Please!"_ cried the Judge. "The lady, hm?" Vera wanted to smirk at the Judge. He really had no idea of her true nature, did he? She was not a pathetic fragile rose petal for _God's sake!_

"Double bluff!" came Blore's sudden outburst.

" _What_ , Tubs?" Philip questioned, looking as though he was truly losing his patience.

"Why you would steal your own gun – Armstrong's got a point. It's all riddles and games, smoke and mirrors – _double bluff_."

"You were the last one down," Philip's tone is suddenly one of realisation as he regards the smaller man with the deepest of suspicion. "The last one! _Ages_ behind everyone else! What – what took you so long?"

Vera regarded the Judge as his face changed in this moment. All the allegations had previously seemed to be insignificant to him but she saw that this one made him turn his head in Blore's direction… Philip _was_ right. Everyone else had been in the kitchen by the time Blore had appeared…

Vera watched the London man squirm. "I don't care to say," he said, looking away from them.

Philip evidently tasted blood as he cornered Blore against the wall, his speech coming faster and faster with frustration. " _You_ killed Rogers! _You_ took the master key! You went to bed – you made sure all of us were downstairs – then you got in my room and took my gun – You have my gun, _you little prick! – "_

"Lombard!" chastised the Judge for his language, _again._ Vera inwardly thought it was rather ironic that while he was chastising the Irishman for cussing in her presence, she was feeling desire course through her with every new slur of filth that drawled from his mouth.

"For _heaven's_ sake. I never killed Rogers and I ain't got your key or your _sodding_ gun!"

"Then what took you so long? If you weren't in my room, _stealing_ my gun, then why were you last down?"

"I was in the bloody _lavvy_ , if you must know! _Constipated_."

The echoing hallway is suddenly quiet as all took in what they had just heard. Armstrong let out a giggle first, only for Vera to suddenly become unable to keep her own at bay. Even Philip cracked a smile.

"Bound up something rotten. Sat there in a muck sweat," he carried on. "So it _weren't_ me. It could have been any of us. _Any one of us_ could have had the key. _Any_ one of us could have the gun. It is the only way to be sure."

Suddenly, there was tense quiet amongst the five of them again as Blore slowly began to climb the stairs, very much in Detective Inspector mode. "We 'ave to search everyone – without clothes, o' course."

Thus, that was how it came to be that Vera Claythorne found herself in Mr. Lombard's room for the first time. They had searched Armstrong's room first, not finding said gun, but all realising very soon that he had indeed been telling the truth about his Mark. (It stood out in it's dark chocolate colouring on the fair, freckled skin of his left shoulder blade, clearly spelling out the initials 'N O'). Next came the Judge, and while she could have been mistaken, Vera frowned at the sight of him in a dressing down, his nakedness all but covered in comparison to the other men. She couldn't help but feel he was hiding something. She searched and she _searched_ with glances when he was not looking, but she could not seem to see a Mark on him on the small amount of skin exposed. Hadn't he said he had always had the Mark of his wife?

As the four of them set to work searching Mr. Lombard's room, Vera noted that the arrogant, _wicked_ Irishman stood, naked as the day he was born, for all of them to see. He had not wrapped his towel around his waist fully as Armstrong, overweight and self-conscious as he seemed, had done. _Oh_ _no_ – Philip Lombard's towel was situated _so low_ on his hips that Vera was sure it could slide no lower without a certain thick patch of hair being revealed. She busied herself searching the chest of drawers in the corner and chastised herself throughout for even _wanting_ to look at him. He was a _narcissist,_ quite _obviously._ He _loved_ himself so much that he stood that way to feel like a caveman beating his chest.

While she was well aware of the arrogant reasonings behind his display, Vera could _feel_ him watching her and found she could not concentrate on looking for the gun, even if it were that her life would later depend on it. She straightened up and decided to inspect him in this near-naked glory, nonchalantly glancing over her shoulder as though she had finished her search.

In the next moment, his gaze shifted, from eyeballing Armstrong in a manner Vera could only compare to the male primates in London Zoo, to catching hers as she admired him. She drank in the sight of him, watching her watching _him,_ leaning with such ease and confidence against the oak door, hips thrust slightly forward, bare skin slightly tanned. His bare chest was as defined as she had suspected it to be from the brief glimpses she had stolen while he was wearing his dressing gown; the dark hair she had admired spread from high on his sternum by his collarbones all the way down over his firm and raised pectorals, forming a thick, tantalising trail down his delineated abdominal muscles until it disappear under the scarce cover of the towel.

As they shared a second of silent communication, the look in his eyes said very little, as he no doubt intended to keep her guessing, but Vera _knew_. They said: _Well, well, look how the tables have turned, Miss Claythorne. What's this?_ You? _Staring at_ me?

She dropped her gaze after a moment, down and to the left, in a manner that was exaggerated but resembled how bashful _proper young ladies_ were taught to react, should they ever be caught inspecting a potential suitor. His gaze continued to bore into her, evidently encouraged by her defiant display in response to his own, and it made her nervous. Philip Lombard struck her as a man that always knew what he wanted but also how to get it…and she suddenly felt as though she was now his prey.

Whether she _wanted_ to be his prey or not was debatable. Her mind told her it was a ludicrous idea, that there was still _every_ possibility that he was the murderer and that he could kill her in her sleep, should they be intimate in his bed… On the other hand, her libido told her all such worries were secondary. It clawed at her composure and sanity, like a dog whining to be released. She had to take many a breath to quash it and even then, it simply lay dormant, festering and angry at being ignored.

"Right – now you, Miss Claythorne." As the Judge dismissed the search, Vera made her way to her room to change. With each step she took to leave the room, she felt ever the more anxious, but also _charged._ The pull she felt within her to move toward his body felt magnetic, as though there was a cosmic force with the weight of gravity fighting back against her self control. She looked at the floor until she was but a few feet from him, not being able to resist raising her eyes to his as she reached the door. His were sharp, alert, _hungry,_ and waiting for her, locking eye contact with her in an instant. The skin on the back of her neck felt hot under his scrutiny as she felt an undeniable tug deep in her loins at his closeness.

That is when she realised the ultimate conundrum of Philip Lombard; while he made her feel preyed upon and small in his manner and his arrogance, he also left her feeling more _powerful_ and alert than she ever had before. She was able to effect a man of such conviction in such a pronounced fashion…and it left her with quite an ego. _Perhaps that was the way to combat a man like that,_ she thought. _Beat him at his own game…with his_ own armour.

As she pulled on her red wool swimming suit, she struggled not to be swallowed by the memories of the last time she had worn it: the day she let Cyril die.

It wasn't until they met again in the hallway, while the other men searched her room, that she caught sight of the Mark on his arm, peeking out on the inside of his toned bicep.

They had stood, statuesque, for a twenty seconds, simply basking in the electric energy that passed between the two of them, despite their not touching. For a moment or two, she pretended to ignore him as he stood, still clothed in but a towel, staring at her. When she had turned to him and undone her gown, showing him the red swimming suit that had come to symbolise all that was sinful about her life, she had smirked at him and the way his pupils dilated at her exposed skin. They introduced themselves with their first names, as though meeting for the first time with a brand new state of intimacy seeming to exist between them. Vera watched as all the most damnable of scenarios played out behind his eyes as they did not stray, never mind blink.

He wanted her and she wanted _him_. There was nothing else in existence in that moment.

In fact, if it hadn't been for what happened next, or the other souls in the next room, she was certain he would have right there against that very wall.

Abruptly, she felt a burn and scratch settle into her skin again, much like the momentary sensation she had felt that first day, on the dock. It almost knocked her for six, leaving her breathless and hot.

As the Judge came round the corner, Vera went to scramble away from Philip and act nonchalant. She had to get away to inspect where it was this pain and itch was coming from. She wrapped her arms around herself and, upon the pressure against her ribs, felt the friction and itch flair again. Willing herself to stand straight, Vera aimed to make a bee-line for her bedroom.

Just before she could do so, she caught sight of something dark on the inside of Philip's arm and frowned, tightening her gown around herself. _A Mark?_ She felt ill at the thought of it because it meant the kinship she felt in her assumption that he too was Unmarked was all false. _Philip had a Mark?_ As she walked away her discomfort was forgotten, as she just could not make sense of it. Completely knocked sideways by the revelation, she did not notice the itch and burn on her skin subside and disappear. _How_ had she got him so wrong? Philip surely _couldn't_ have a Mark. He surely _couldn't_ be like them?

* * *

P. Lombard

After their sudden moment of chemistry in the corridor, Philip was acutely aware of two things: not only was he entirely and completely _ensnared_ by Miss Claythorne, but he had to make sure they both survived, because he knew he would never to meet another woman like her. A woman who not only saw what he was and rose up to it, but a woman whose evils were comparable with his own.

"Well, well, Miss Claythorne," he'd husked as she had exposed her bathing suit to him in the middle of the hallway. _Finally_ she had dropped her masquerade and he had been half-tempted to laugh and rejoice, if it weren't for the fact she would strike him for doing so.

She smirked at him then and he realised it was the first smile she had given him since they had met. He very much liked the villainy in it, the way her eyes spoke decibels louder than any words she had ever spoken aloud. "Mr. Lombard…" She had whispered, as though challenging him to make a move, if he dare.

If that were to be, he realised, then such formalities what _had_ to go. " _Philip_ ," he corrected her, never once breaking eye contact. She had been watching his body since the moment she had set eyes on him in nothing but that towel and he knew by the way her eyes trailed his movements that she was just as affected by him and he was by her. Perhaps _that_ was why he introduced himself with his Christian name – or perhaps he just wanted to hear her start using it. Either way, he crossed a boundary in that moment, one he had never intended to. _Hell –_ he was a _contract killer_ , for _Christ's sake;_ a lapsed (never-was) Catholic with a skill for torture. He was hardly someone highly suited for Vera Claythorne; the haunted, high maintenance woman that she was.

That being said, there had been something between them since they met and it blossomed in these few short moments of quiet.

 _"Vera,"_ she countered huskily, ever the temptress he had always thought her to be. It was an acceptance, a nod to his offer for more, for an alliance.

It was alien to him, to not only _want_ a woman in such magnitude but to actually want to know her, past her body. Admittedly, his original interest in Vera had stemmed purely from the enticing sight of her legs and stockings, but now he found himself looking out for her, finding excuses to speak with her, lingering to watch her reactions.

If she had intrigued him on the first day, she now had him lured entirely.

Though he would never _tell_ her so, of course.


End file.
